The end of Chinese New Year.

Monday  22^nd Feb 2016.


Housekeeping brought us a mattress topper today. For our king size bed, they brought a double! All they had apparently. Thankfully we were there getting ready to go out, because, using his feeble man brain, the housekeeping guy laid it down the middle of the bed, so we’re either s’possed to be half on, half off, or get real cosy! Before he could make the bed I spun it around sideways, so it runs the width of the bed from our shoulders to just below our knees. We’ll see how it goes.

our room

the view from our room

Breakfast was a bit special, served in the Premiere Lounge on the 16tth floor. Eggs to order and a lot of other things that you might expect, but no sign of bacon. I think we’ve landed in a halal hotel. Oh well, chicken sausages it is. 


Today’s plan was to buy the Tourist weekly bus ‘passport’ available from all good Rapid Bus Kiosks, good luck finding one of those, or the bus depot at Komtar, a big shopping centre and bus hub, only a short bus ride away on the free Central Area Transit (CAT) bus. 30 Ringgits and ride the buses as much as you like for the week, once you figure out which one to take to get where you want to go. But even if you stuff up, you pay no more and go on a little sightseeing tour into the bargain. The only snag in the plan was that you need photo I.D. to purchase! There was no mention of that on TripAdvisor!! Bugger! We line up again to ask if a photocopy of our passports will suffice and the man says yes, so it looks like we have to go back to the hotel to get them, then Trevor remembers we both brought expired driver’s licences with us so we line up, again. And victory is ours!! We have our bus pass although the number is nothing like the one on our licence, so who knows where that came from! Now, where are we going to go? I hadn’t thought that bit through…………… The first place that comes to mind is Penang Hill, I really do have a thing for getting to the highest point possible! A little old man is sitting right by the ticket window handing out free travel advice, so we ask him which bus and he sorts us out, it goes from just inside. A bit like the bus stop under Bondi Junction. While we wait, a Chinese Malay lady asks us if we need any help finding where we want to go. The people here are very helpful. We tell her we want to go to Penang Hill and she nearly falls over!! “Oh, no!! Too hot, too hot, wait till later in the afternoon, go up there for sunset, very pretty, see all the lights of George Town. Not go now, too hot, too hot!!” What about the Buddhist Temple then? “Yes, Kek Lok Si Temple, very nice, not 204 bus, 201 bus, much better”. And she just happens to be getting the 201, so she takes us under her wing for the entire trip, chatting away about this and that, “where you from?” near Sydney – screws up face, “don’t like Sydney, too congested, like Melbourne, Melbourne very nice”. “Where you staying?” – Bayview in George Town – again, screws up face – “oh, very expensive, too far away from everything”  and then “you got the wrong shoes, you need comfortable shoes, running shoes, not those ones you have on”. At this point the lady across the aisle actually moves and looks to see what shoes I have on. And it went on – “you should have been here yesterday, Chinese New Year over now, all the lights gone” – then another lady chips in, in Chinese, setting our friend straight. No the lights are still up.
So eventually, we get near the stop for Kek Lok Si and more advice sprouts –“don’t buy anything at the top, all tourist price, buy drinks before you go up or after you come down” and “bus stop to go back to Penang Hill is just back there, ask someone, they will tell you”. And she’s right, the people here go out of their way to help you find your way. Makes you wonder how many days of the week she finds some lost soul to help!

part of Kek Lok Si Temple

Buddhist Goddess of Mercy, Guan Yin

You buy a ribbon and add it to the others on the pole

Anyway, I’m glad we met her because it was so freaking hot up Kek Lok Si that I would have hated to be up Penang Hill!! You walk up a side street from the road where the bus drops you, all very well sign posted, past quite a few t-shirt and souvenir sellers and a few ‘restaurants’ but you ain’t seen nothing yet! The stairs and stairs and stairs leading up to the Temple are lined with shopping opportunities, but it’s all under cover and fairly cool, so it’s worth walking slowly. It’s on the way back down that they really start the hard sell. You’re escaping empty-handed. There’s the Tortoise Liberation Pond on the way where you can buy water convolvulus to feed to them, they must be the best fed tortoises on the island. 

I forget how many levels we pass, at least 6, but when we get to a certain one, there is a lovely viewpoint over G Town and then you can catch a funicular railway to the top. It cost 12 MYR for both of us to have a return ride and avoid many, many more stairs. Well worth the money. You can see the statue of the Buddhist Goddess of Mercy, Guan Yin. I’ve always thought she was beautiful, from the first time I saw her in Vietnam back in 2008. This one is the biggest statue I’ve seen of her, probably over 30m tall. If she wasn’t under a roof, you could probably see her from space!


On the way back down to street level the sellers are much more vocal but we resist. Trevor has seen some t-shirts at a street market where we got off the bus that he wants to go back to. They seem to be good quality but a bit more than he wanted to pay, but in the end, sense prevailed and we both got one. 50 MYR for the 2. We also bought a Year of the Monkey toy for Miss V, seeing as she turned 2 today. Lunch time and we spot a street café selling Hainan Chicken rice so we take a seat inside where it’s a bit cooler. Hainan chicken rice and fresh squeezed orange juice. BBQ chicken. 16 MYR but Trevor thought the lady said 60 and nearly had a heart attack!


Following the directions we were given earlier by the lady on the bus, we find the bus stop and wait for the 204 to take us to Penang Hill lower station from where we will catch another funicular railway to the summit. This one cost 30 MYR each return which is not too bd a price, approx $10 AU. Beats walking! I had no idea how long the railway was or how interesting it would be. It was amazing and absolutely worth the money! It started off fairly steep, then turned a bend and got a bit steeper, then a bit more, then thru a tunnel, then we were at the top! Over 800m above sea level and the top was originally the site of the Govenor’s Residence because the altitude made it cooler. There were a few good vantage points to look over G Town and we even found a couple of beers, because it was still quite warm. Cashing in on the Parisian ‘love lock’ thing, there is a sturdy fence with many locks attached, but all quite ordinary, not like the unusual ones we saw in Paris. As we do, there were more stairs leading to a higher area where there was a Hindu Temple and a Mosque. Up there we saw a squirrel like critter racing thru the treetops until he found the food he was looking for growing in the tree. Found out later he was an Asian Red Cheeked squirrel. I don’t think anyone else saw him but us. 


Catching the bus back to town was easy. Lower station is at the top of a cul-de-sac and the bus was right where we left it. We knew we were approaching our hotel and pressed the bell and didn’t get carried too far past, so that was good, we were both worn out. 


Flipping through the Feb/Mar copy of ‘Where2’ in our room, I discovered that today was the last day of Chinese New Year (no political correctness over here, no talk of Lunar New Year) and that tonight down at the Padang, there was a bit of a carnival with a Festival of Lanterns happening, and fireworks to finish the night. There were fireworks even before we got down there, we could see them from our room. Did I mention what a good view we have?? Traditionally on this night, also being Chinese Valentine’s Day, and a full moon, eligible women throw oranges into the sea with prayers for finding their true love. Lots of people were down there but it wasn’t too crowded and the lines for food were quite short and moved quickly. We had chic satay sticks, 6 for 5MYR x 2. 6MYR if you wanted a rice cube in the bottom of the cup. The pergola over the footpath along the length of the Padang was hung with little hot air balloon shaped lanterns, all with white lights. They looked like white wisteria from a distance, very pretty. We took the tripod down and got what should have been good shots until I realized that the filter over the lens was shattered. That’ll teach me to wear my glasses. We have no idea how it broke, it was fine when we left Pattaya. Another job to add to the list – get a new one.
Extremely weary by now, we head back, picking up some drinks along the way at a very busy 7/11. I set myself up by the window to watch for the fireworks that we hoped would go off before we collapsed, and they did. We intentionally avoided being here for Chinese New Year to avoid the crowds, but I think if we ever come again, we’ll try and be here for it. It goes for 2 weeks and people really get into the spirit of it.